A Bolder, Pinker Pendo

I’m excited to introduce our new branding that was officially launched today. I’ve gotten these questions several times…

Why change your branding? Is this really the most important thing?

Why Change?

Starting at the end of last year, I received lots of feedback around our brand and specifically our website. People would see a demonstration of our product and remark “wow, cool product I had no idea what you did based on your website.” We also heard feedback like “your website doesn’t really reflect who you are.” Candidly, many of us felt the same way. We had Yet Another Bootstrap Website, and it didn’t fully characterize what was special about us.

We set out to fix this, and honestly, it makes sense. We created our prior brand identity very early in our company’s life. We had 6 employees and 6 customers. We had been in business just over a year and had spent nearly the entire time heads down building product. We hadn’t really had to support or service our customers. Our identity did reflect who we were–a company just getting started.

Fast forward to today, we have 50 employees helping over 170 customers. We’re still an early-stage company, but we have a richer identity and personality shaped by another 18 months of operating.

How Did We Do It?

We used a friend of the company to work on new brand expressions and narrowed his work down to a few favorites. Then we engaged with our customers. We conducted a set of interview sessions with our customers where we asked them to describe the company and provide specific feedback on the candidate designs. During the session, customers described Pendo as a consultant, an advisor, and a friend. The favored design was described as clean, bold, and confident.

The prior branding reflected a more standard and conservative navy and gray palette with a hint of pink. We chose pink as an accent color early in company’s history to stand out, especially when we attended conferences. Wearing a bright pink shirt is more affordable than buying a booth! Over time pink seemed to resonate with our customers and stand out from the sea of conservative SaaS sites. Customers liked that we were different and they believed in our authenticity.

Logo?

We didn’t set out to change our logo–that affects a lot. Since we were making a change, we decided to take a pass at cleaning up the logo. We like what our logo represents–guidance. Our product helps guide teams towards a better product experience. Yet, the previous logo was complex and not entirely obvious to everyone seeing it. While cleaning it up, our design team played with an approach that showcased a much simpler, cleaner, and bolder design than our prior mark. After conducting another round of polls, we felt that the design better reflected the direction of our new identity.

So What Was the Goal?

Simple. The goal was to deliver a brand and identity that reflects who were are. The attributes we hope this brand represents are bold, confident, friendly, and fun. We hope you enjoy it. Please share any feedback that you have.

A BIG Thanks

Lastly, I want to thank the team behind this work. Changing your brand, especially your logo, has far-reaching effects. There are many details that need to be checked, and the team did a fabulous job. As a matter of fact, there is still more work to do, so be patient if you see a few things with our previous branding.